A Lady's First Larder

I was first introduced to the concept of local food when I worked at Parker's New American Bistro in Ohio City. I worked there for four years until the restaurant closed in 2006. Parker Bosley, a controversial figure in Cleveland, started the restaurant that first brought consciousness to Cleveland cuisine.

Despite his polarizing political philosophies, Bosley is undeniably lauded for beginning the local food movement in Cleveland and he opened the first restaurant that sourced its meat and produce from local, family farms. Bosley is currently retired from the restaurant business and is working with the North Union Farmer's Markets.

Since my introduction to local foods, buying and eating locally has become increasingly important to me for a variety of reasons: community, carbon footprint, nutrition, social justice, connection, sustainability, etcetera. I am a City Fresh shareholder and a farmer's market (there are so many in Cleveland!) shopper which makes it quite convenient to eat mostly locally from Spring to Autumn.

I find winter to be the most trying time to maintain my locavore priorities. Although there are some cool weather vegetables available, in January I inevitably buy produce grown faraway.

In an effort to eat fewer imports during Cleveland's winter I made a decision to learn to preserve food this summer. I began with the fruit that grows in the backyard of my century-old, Ohio City rental. First, I tackled the annoying mulberry tree by my driveway. Giving myself an attitude adjustment about the mushy, stinky, fly-attracting mush, I decided to pick the ripened fruit before it hit the ground. I got some recipes online, some mason jars, and some pectin and made my first ever batch of jam. It was fun, edible, empowering, useful and gift-worthy.

I repeated the process with the backyard strawberry patch. I ate many fresh strawberries, but could not consume enough of them in peak season.

Last week, the Concord grape vines produced such a bounty that it would be impossible for my friends and I to eat them all while fresh. I gave about 10 pounds to Lucky's Cafe, ate a ton and then made grape jam. Maybe next year I'll learn to make wine.

Feeling inspired by my blossoming pantry, I decided to preserve some staples. Last weekend I bought almost 20 pounds of tomatoes from the North Union Farmer's Market at Shaker Square. I borrowed a pressure cooker, boiled mason jars and taught myself how to can tomatoes. I hope to can corn next.

I know that my small stash of preserved items is merely a small gesture toward eating locally during the winter, but I hope that I am developing a mindset that allows for thoughtful planning and consistent actions that support my priorities.

Keep your eye out for my February Lasagna Party featuring Mogadore-grown tomatoes and Ohio City Pasta! Also, check out the Local Food Cleveland site.

Mall B

My morning commute typically involves a Rapid ride to Tower City and a walk to Lakeside Avenue. In between those points is one of my favorite downtown places: Mall B.

Right now the Verdant Walk is there--a Cleveland Public Art project with green, round, solar paneled night lights interspersed between native grasses. The grasses are going to seed and little brown birds (finches?) frequent the area to feast on summer's bounty.

Mall B has always been a park and was part of the Cleveland's original City Plan. Someone told me that about ten years ago Mall B was a parking lot. However, Mall C was used as parking until just a few years ago. Below is a picture from the Cleveland Memory Project of a Victory Garden at Mall B in 1945.

I hope the Verdant Walk is followed by other installations and creative uses for this space. I thought maybe free lunchtime Croquet games would be nice. Any ideas for use of this public space?

Ready, (mind)Set, (let) Go!

A group of friends/acquaintances have been having a series of consciousness discussions at Visible Voice Books in Tremont. I am planning to attend on August 6th at 7:30pm. Before each discussion, participants are encouraged to read a set of articles on a chosen topic. Next week's focus is evolution beyond the conflict of Darwinism vs. Creationism.

I was alternately annoyed and intrigued to read views on evolution that I don't ascribe to and so typically ignore. I found most interesting the nuggets about evolution as it relates to social consciousness and the causes of sweeping changes in global mindset.

An excerpt from Daniel Pinchbeck's book, 2012: The Return Of Quetzalcoatl is included.

The Stone Age lasted many thousands of years, the Bronze Age lasted a few thousand years, the Industrial Age took three hundred years, the Chemical Age or Plastic Age began a little more than a century ago, the Information Age began thirty years ago, the Biotechnology Age geared up in the last decade. By this calculus, it is conceivable that the Nanotechnology Age could last all of eight minutes. At that point, human intelligence might have complete control of the planetary environment, on a cellular and molecular level. This could lead to utopian creativity or dystopian insanity--perhaps both would arrive at the same moment.

I also learned a new word: Metanoia. The word has a few meanings: a spiritual conversion or awakening, a fundamental change of character or an attempt of a conflicted psyche to heal itself through breakdown and change.

I have come across a similarly clinical way to think about changing one's mindset in How everyday products make people sick : toxins at home and in the workplace. Author Paul D.Blanc compares the grudgingly slow change of industry and individual mindset about global warming to the stages of grief. He believes that as our fossil fueled convictions begin to grieve their own demise we can expect to experience:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance.

Looks as if the United States is currently hovering between Bargaining (carbon trading) and (economic) Depression. It seems we grieve the death of attitudes and ideas, perhaps more than the death of people. Maybe this is because we expect to lose people, but not our convictions. Looking forward to finding out which of my core beliefs will be challenged on Wednesday.

On July 10th, The Plain Dealer reported "More people left Cleveland last year than any other major city in America". There are 438,000 people living in a city that was once home to 914,000. Cleveland has lost half its body weight and we are looking rather lean these days. What are we going to do with this skeleton?

In Iyengar yoga, teachers often emphasize "squeezing the muscles towards the bone". This drawing in supports the body when it is in challenging positions. The yogi/ni contracts inward to provide a lithe stability instead of building showy, useless bulk by pooching the muscles out thoughtlessly.

I am concerned about the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's announcement today of rate increases and route cuts. Mass transit is the connective tissue of our community. I will be writing my representatives and encouraging them on a state and federal level to increase funding for public transportation. Cutting RTA isn't trimming the fat; it's removing the heart.

Enchanted

Yesterday, I tried to approach Independence Day without weariness. Nobody says it, but I know it’s gauche to be patriotic among my social circles. The accepted attitude among progressives in my age bracket is a cynical regard for country and a jaded global perspective accompanied by some fatalist notions.

I watched the puff-pop, fizzle-drip, sparkle-drift of Cleveland’s firework display from a vantage west of the Cuyahoga, through telephone wires and above a freeway bridge.

I refused to fret over fireworks’ symbolism as wartime rockets red glare. I didn’t reflect on the current unsound war. I tuned out the auditory violence of explosions. I simply opened my eyes and took it in—enchanted.

UNWRITTEN

Sometimes we regret our failure to write about things that really interest us. The reason we fail is probably that to write about them would prove embarrassing. The things that interested us in the past week, for example, and that we were unable or unwilling to write about (things that stand out clear as pictures in our head) were: the look in the eye of a man whose overcoat, with velvet collar, was held together by a bit of string; the appearance of an office after the building had shut down for the night, and the obvious futility of the litter; the head and shoulders of a woman in a lighted window, combing her hair with infinite care, making it smooth and neat so it would attract someone who would want to muss it up; Osgood Perkins in love with Lillian Gish; a man on a bicycle on Fifth Avenue, a short eulogy of John James Audubon, who spent his life loafing around, painting birds; an entry in Art Young’s diary; about a sick farmer who didn’t know what was the matter with himself but thought it was probably biliousness; and the sudden impulse that we had (and very nearly gratified) to upend a large desk for the satisfaction of seeing everything on it slide off slowly onto the floor.

-E. B. White
The New Yorker
04/26/1930

E. B. White is probably my favorite author. I adore Strunk & White’s Elements of Style and Essays of E. B. White is favored vacation reading. I am presently reading his Writings From the New Yorker: 1925-1976. If Mr. White were living today, he’d presumably be a blogger of the highest authority. Witty, succinct, timely and timeless, his nuggets of prose would be perfect posts.

Last night Jeff and I talked about what’s behind a blogger's content choices. We’ve talked about it before: motivation, intention and audience.

I pursued a journalism degree and had hopes of reporting for the Akron Beacon Journal right about the time that they significantly shrunk staff and budget. Almost ten years later, I am poking around the blogosphere trying to find the boundary between public and private, personal and confessional, noteworthy and not worth mentioning.

I am always surprised when I discover a link to Lustfelt or someone tells me that they've read my post. I often tell myself and others that I write with the “nobody reads my blog” frame of mind. Lies! I don’t write it as if nobody reads it and now Mr. White has me wondering what's in my “unwritten” file.

Panarchy is an alternative to/expansion of the Succession Model that I learned in junior high. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems relates Panarchy to urban systems.

Systems/Cities will “undergo periodical disturbance in order to maintain overall dynamic stability. Typically, the system accumulates biomass slowly over a long period of time and then when the system is disturbed, biomass drops quickly, releasing nutrients for recycling”.

Panarchy has 4 phases:

1. Exploitation: the birth phase. Pioneer and opportunist species proliferate building biomass and greater connectedness.
2. Conservation: climax phase, biological capital is stored and connectedness reaches its peak.
3. Release: the disturbance phase. Usually short, releasing carbon and nutrients.
4. Renewal: reorganization where it renews itself or flips to another state which may be more or less productive.

It seems like Cleveland is in phase 3. According to Newman and Jennings, the positive part of disruption is the opportunity to release “nutrients” that can be used as the system renews. The urban ecosystem needs feedback loops to benefit from the discharge.

I see Cleveland mostly “eroding” instead of “feedback-ing”. Houses are being demolished instead of reclaimed or de-constructed. Erosion of mined metals is occurring as scrappers sell materials that are probably bound for Dubai.

One feedback loop of a positive note:
This Monday starts the deconstruction of Stanard School in the St. Clair Superior Neighborhood. This deconstruction project is headed by Ward 13 Councilman Joe Cimperman, The Department of Building and Housing, and the St. Clair Superior Development Corporation with technical support from the Ohio EPA.

Most of the usable wood has been reclaimed and the bricks will be re-used by community and market gardens among others. The New Agrarian Center has been documenting the process with video. The goals: keep construction waste out of landfills, make the deconstruction pay for itself through sales of some of the materials, provide materials for community groups in need. I hope this is one of many projects like this.

In an effort to improve electronics recycling in the United States, the U.S. Postal Service is developing a free national collection program for small electronic items. More here.

Right now it's just a pilot program so it may take awhile to get to Cleveland.